The Whole Future Catalog (Online Edition)

(SkeeterMurphy says:) From what PatrickSalsbury's told me, "The Kids' Whole Future Catalog" is a book that contains information directed at children. The idea is to get kids interested in learning about and creating the future they will live in. The book contains addresses where kids can send for free samples of futuristic materials and interesting information.

Originally, these pages were intended to be an updated version of just the book, but realistically, it should be presented to and written for a larger audience of all ages. (After all, we've all got to live there, right?) We can and should still provide kid-friendly pages and sections, but it's important to write for people of all ages, to prepare them with the ideas and tools necessary to build a bright future.

The original book was written by Paula Taylor and is (c) 1982, published by Radom House. It was dedicated "To Buckminster Fuller whose ideas inspired this catalog -- and to Cy DeCosse and the many others who helped bring the book into being."

Sadly, it seems to have been out of print for years, (ISBN 0-394-85090-4 (alternate, search) (trade paperback); ISBN 0-394-95090-9 (alternate, search) (library binding)) but hopefully we can create a "living document" version, inspired by the book. And perhaps through the efforts of those reading and writing here, we can bring a new tome into being, which can help future generations prepare for and understand their future. (However! Following the above links, there are *ten* used copies for sale via Amazon.com! (As of this writing... Please update this tally if you notice it's different.)

While we're not actually (yet!) associated with Ms. Taylor or the original published effort, it's hoped that we can bring together a new set of resources for today's populace, as well as bring some of the original sections up to date. (The computers of 1982 were a bit less robust than today, and ours will probably be laughable in another 10-20 years. But many of her predictions were fairly accurate, and we now have computers in homes, stores, at work, at school, in cars, etc.)

If anyone knows how to contact Ms. Taylor, please contact PatrickSalsbury with the relevant info. It would be great to get her involved with this project, or be able to include some of her excellent and inspirational work here.

This online effort is a perfect use for something like Wiki, (in fact, it's one of the main reasons I installed this wiki) since it will allow all of us to add info and links, expand on areas that we have knowledge of, and correct each other's mistakes and typos. :-) In essence, this is what the [WikiPedia] project is doing, and I'd like to focus this specific collection of knowledge on future-related info that is accessible to the K-12 levels of students as well as adults interested in learning about the future.

In fact, I suspect that we can probably cross-link to a variety of wiki pages that already exist there...